Let dreams live in championships

My opinion about organized sports is eccentric. I like sports as a recreation, but as soon as they are turned into an organized, competitive activity in which opposing teams play according to rules for the purpose of acquiring points in order to defeat opponents, then you lose me. Where’s the fun in that?

So I think the International Olympic Committee’s decision to cut wrestling from its program (“IOC set to drop wrestling from 2020,” Feb. 14) is a rare step in the right direction. Now for a more perfect world, all the IOC need do is to cut the rest of the sports from its summer program, do the same for its winter program, then retire itself, get out of our lives, and let us all revel in the world championships of sports, where the fun really is.

The Olympics are not the pinnacle of sporting achievement. Rather, that is the world championships, and so long as there are world championships, then wrestlers and other athletes need not lament about what will become of youngsters’ dreams, as three-time Olympic gold medal wrestler Saori Yoshida does (“Wrestling faces up to Olympic snub,” Feb. 14).

The dreams live on in the world championships, which is where they ought to be and is the best place for them.

Decisions to cut sports from the itinerary do more damage to corporations’ profit margins than to athletes’ careers, and to get carried away with a different take on the matter is to lose sight of the ball while being disingenuous.

grant piper

tokyo

The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.